2yo - travel sickness

[reabies]

Hello, does anyone have any advice on what I can do for my 2yo who routinely vomits in the car? He is rear facing and I'd like to keep him like that for as long as possible.

I asked a pharmacist and she said there is nothing they can take til they are 4. We try to give him at least an hour between any food and car journeys, but it doesn't really work.

We are getting a ferry to France in a few weeks and I'm really worried we'll be in for a rough night there too. If anyone has used anything that's helped with travel sickness please share 🙏🏻 thanks so much!

Have you tried to see if forward facing helps?

Dramamine Kids tablets. Bought online.

Honestly, the only thing that got me more than 10mins from home from age 2. I just gave half a tablet. Didn't even make dc drowsy, just didn't puke. Gamechanger.

Keep the car cool, slightly cooler than is comfortable, and the air fresh if at all possible.

Remove the headrest behind his seat if you haven't already so he can see out the back window better. Sometimes blacking out the side window next to him helps as well, so he doesn't see stuff zipping past him.

I think you can get child size of those anti-sea-sickness wristbands, but they might still be too big at 2.

I haven't, but to be honest I am a travel sick person and forward facing doesn't really help me - I will be sick on literally anything that moves. So for now I'd like to see if there is anything I can do that will allow us to keep rear facing for as long as possible.

It's hard as DS gets very distressed by the sickness so if FF is the only thing that helps long term I'll try it, but want to exhaust all other options first.

Thanks so much I will look into these!!

Amazing - hadn't thought of removing the headrest will try that! His window is quite blocked with his sunshade so maybe that is already helping a bit.

I'll look for the sea bands as well, don't know why I didn't think of those when I have a pair somewhere! Sometimes you just need other people to cut through the brain fog. Thank you!

I never gave mine milk before any travel more than 45 mins long. I only gave sickness tablets once when DS was 6, they made him very thirsty.

When mine were sick I used potette/potty liners as they have a square of material that solidifies contents. Use onr to line one of those large, bucket style yoghurt pots, perfect size for little ones.

Honestly, nothing helped mine but Dramamine.

We went forward facing, which I regret, and tried the bands and the windows down and all of it. Rivers of puke until Dramamine. Wish I'd kept him rf too as it's so hard to go back to it (and didn't make a difference to the sick)

You can get Phenergan liquid from pharmacies. However a lot of places don't sell it now because of parents abusing it by giving it to their kids to get them to sleep.

Unfortunately mine only got relief being ff. We used to travel at night one of us in the back with a changes of clothes etc.

I will be brutally honest we pretty much only travelled when absolutely necessary and didn’t holiday for a few years because they were just so wore out after a day of being sick and knowing it was ahead again just didn’t make it a holiday. They grew out of it at around 8 and the younger one at 3.

What helps you, OP? If it’s hereditary you might find the same things help your DC?

I changed to forward facing at 2 as the sickness was getting worse to the point that he was vomitting after only a 5 minute car journey and I felt it was more dangerous as I was so distracted when driving, waiting for him to be sick. It has really helped, he has only vomited a couple of times in last month.

Also, window open, car cold. Anti-histamines help, but don’t say you are using them as car sickness prevention as they are licensed for hay-fever for 2 year olds but not car sickness. Also my 2 year old hates taking medicine so only use it when we are going on a long windy journey.

We switched to ff and that pretty much solved it - still get a bit of sickness if a v long journey or particularly winding roads but it's much better than it was. Would have preferred to rear face for longer but had to be practical about it.

Sorry to hear that your little one is struggling. I’ve no personal experience but I’ve attached some advice that is routinely suggested in the Extended Rear Facing Facebook Group I follow. The general advice always is that moving to FF very rarely helps.

Forward facing definitely helped both of mine. DD was really bad and we actually ended up putting her seat in the middle (probably only an option in a big car) so she could see out of the front windscreen, also apparently it’s safer if that’s a concern as it’s further protected from side impacts, and it went from exorcist style scenes every car journey to it only being an issue when we go skiing 1-2 times a year because of the mountain roads.